Overview

Format Details

Edtitorial Reviews

Cast & Production Credits

High Noon

UPC:
017153240856

Studio:
Lionsgate

MPAA Rating:
NR Contains:[Western Violence, Smoking]

Summary:
This Western classic stars Gary Cooper as Hadleyville marshal Will Kane, about to retire from office and go on his honeymoon with his new Quaker bride, Amy (Grace Kelly). But his happiness is short-lived when he is informed that the Miller gang, whose leader (Ian McDonald) Will had arrested, is due on the 12:00 train. Pacifist Amy urges Will to leave town and forget about the Millers, but this isn't his style; protecting Hadleyburg has always been his duty, and it remains so now. But when he asks for deputies to fend off the Millers, virtually nobody will stand by him. Chief Deputy Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) covets Will's job and ex-mistress (Katy Jurado); his mentor, former lawman Martin Howe (Lon Chaney Jr.) is now arthritic and unable to wield a gun. Even Amy, who doesn't want to be around for her husband's apparently certain demise, deserts him. Meanwhile, the clocks tick off the minutes to High Noon -- the film is shot in "real time," so that its 85-minute length corresponds to the story's actual timeframe. Utterly alone, Kane walks into the center of town, steeling himself for his showdown with the murderous Millers. Considered a landmark of the "adult western," High Noon won four Academy Awards (including Best Actor for Cooper) and Best Song for the hit, "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darling" sung by Tex Ritter. The screenplay was written by Carl Foreman, whose blacklisting was temporarily prevented by star Cooper, one of Hollywood's most virulent anti-Communists. John Wayne, another notable showbiz right-winger and Western hero, was so appalled at the notion that a Western marshal would beg for help in a showdown that he and director Howard Hawks "answered" High Noon with Rio Bravo (1959). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category:
Western

Awards:
U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress
100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute
Best Director – Directors Guild of America
Best Picture - Drama – null
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null
Best Supporting Actress – null
New Star of the Year - Female – null
Best Screenplay – null
Best Original Score – null
Best Cinematography - Black and White – null
Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Drama or Comedy Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Song – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Song – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Picture – National Board of Review
Best Picture – New York Film Critics Circle
Best Director – New York Film Critics Circle
Best Original Score – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Cinematography - Black and White – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Screenplay – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
New Star of the Year - Female – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Moti – Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Disc Two:
"Inside High Noon" - 50-minute documentary on the making of High Noon
"Tex Ritter: A Visit to Carthage, Texas" - portrait piece on the Tex Ritter museum
Full-length Tex Ritter performance of Oscar-winning original song "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin" on the Jimmy Dean TV show
"The Making of High Noon" - featurette
"Behind High Noon" - featurette
Radio broadcast with Tex Ritter

Fred Zinnemann's High Noon was described by John Wayne as the most un-American movie he'd ever seen. It offered an in-your-face story about responsibility, private and public, and some truths about the archetypal American community that would have been unpleasant in any era, but were even more so during the Red Scare of the early 1950s: the spectacle of town marshal Wil Kane (played by a too-old Gary Cooper), abandoned by his friends and neighbors and having to face down outlaws alone, was a pretty raw statement about where some people (including liberal producer Stanley Kramer) feared we were heading in 1952. It was the soundtrack, completed by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington with a song sung by an off-screen Tex Ritter, that helped turn the movie into a huge box office hit. This was a double irony, and an indicator of just what a miraculous conjuring trick Kramer and Zinnemann and screenwriter Carl Foreman had pulled off: Ritter was a reactionary Republican, Cooper an avowed anti-communist, Foreman an avowed Communist sympathizer (who left Hollywood before the movie was released), the movie had two blacklistees in major roles (Lloyd Bridges and Howland Chamberlain), and Kramer was Hollywood's one respected liberal voice. They came up with a film that opened the way for a generation of serious westerns, including The Bravados, The Big Country, and The Searchers. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi